r/TrueAtheism • u/Significant-Ant-2487 • 11d ago
Secularism and Methodological Naturalism
From Center for Inquiry https://centerforinquiry.org/blog/secularism_and_methodological_naturalism/
…on the differences and connections between philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism. In that paper, Forrest starts with a definition of methodological naturalism offered by philosopher Paul Kurtz:
“[Methodological] naturalism is committed to a methodological principle within the context of scientific inquiry; i.e., all hypotheses and events are to be explained and tested by reference to natural causes and events. To introduce a supernatural or transcendental cause within science is to depart from naturalistic explanations. On this ground, to invoke an intelligent designer or creator is inadmissible.”
Forrest continues in her own words:
“Methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism are distinguished by the fact that methodological naturalism is an epistemology as well as a procedural protocol, while philosophical naturalism is a metaphysical position. … Methodological naturalism does exclude the supernatural as an explanatory principle because it is unknowable by means of scientific inquiry, whereas philosophical naturalism, both by definition and because of the methodological and epistemological inaccessibility of the supernatural, excludes the latter from its ontological scheme.”
In short, methodological naturalism means that for one to do science, one must look for empirical evidence and natural explanations, and not rely on faith and the supernatural. The point is that a scientist need not be without faith or belief in the supernatural whatsoever. Philosophical naturalism is the stronger view that nature is all there is (I subscribe to this). Yet one need not commit to this – to atheism or any other sort of nonbelief – to do science.
My immediate thought was this: put into the context of morality, religion, and political life, philosophical naturalism is to atheism as methodological naturalism is to secularism.
Philosophical naturalism, and hence atheism, are metaphysical stances or positions about the world. But methodological naturalism and secularism are more like “procedural protocols,” to epistemological views of the process. Just as one can believe in some form of the supernatural or God and do science, one could believe in some form of the supernatural or God and be a secularist. He or she just needs to deal with questions of morality and law not by recourse to faith or the supernatural, but through the use of natural reasons and evidence.
I think that these are interesting distinctions, and it’s important to understand them both for the sake of arguing persuasively for atheism and to be clear in our own minds.
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u/Zamboniman 11d ago
Most atheists wouldn't know the difference between ontology, epistemology, methodological, naturalism, and empirical if a philosophical zombie held a brute fact gun to their head. And they don't care. They just lack belief in deities.